From Pearl Farms to Antwerp: The Story Behind Jewels of the Kimberley

The Kimberley leaves its mark on everyone who spends enough time here. Its colours, textures and vast landscapes have inspired artists, adventurers and storytellers for generations. For Jewels of the Kimberley founder Jodi Penfold, it has also inspired thousands of jewellery designs, each carrying a connection to the region she proudly calls home.

The very first piece of jewellery Jodi designed was a pendant for her best friend's birthday. "I didn't have much money back then, so I made it from titanium and silver," she recalls of that very first piece. "It was simple and modern. Geometric lines. She still wears it now."

That pendant - humble in its origins - is now the beginning of a story that spans thousands of designs, a deep-rooted love of the Kimberley, and a career that has taken Jodi from pearl farms to the diamond-setting schools of Antwerp.

Inspired by the Kimberley

Ask Jodi what inspires her most and the answer comes without hesitation: her surroundings.

"The Kimberley region, with its vast landscapes, intense colours and textures, is an endless source of inspiration. We are so lucky to have the world's rarest and highest quality diamonds, the world's best pearls and a soil rich in gold right on our doorstep. It takes 'locally made' to an entirely new level."

It's a sentiment that runs through everything Jewels of the Kimberley creates - jewellery that is unmistakably of this place.

A Memorable Journey

Jodi's path into jewellery design was anything but conventional. As a third-year apprentice, she launched her own business on a handshake deal with a travelling salesman of Cook Island black pearls and Australian sapphires. In those pre-YouTube days, she taught herself through books, driven by an insatiable desire to understand the craft from the ground up.

That curiosity eventually led her to Broome - and to one of the more memorable chapters of her career: grading pearls on a working farm.

"I have fond memories of just how raw pearl farming can be" - including, she recounts, the experience of wading waist-deep in a crocodile-infested creek while holding three million dollars' worth of pearls in her hands.

From there, Jodi went on to study gemmology, which she credits as instrumental in understanding the care of gemstones and "being able to confidently push them to their limit in both design and manufacture."

A Deep Love of Diamonds

Over the years, Jodi has developed a particular passion for Australian diamonds - though she'll admit that white diamonds once struck her as "a bit boring" before the Kimberley revealed to her the "rainbow of hues diamonds have to offer … from the rarest pinks to fiery oranges and rich, deep greens."

What she loves most, though, is the diamond's extraordinary resilience.

"I love the hardness of diamonds. As a diamond-setter, I can literally hit them with a hammer; as a jeweller I can heat them until they glow red-hot to fuse metals together to form designs. I would never dream of using these techniques on any other gem."

That passion took her all the way to an exclusive diamond-setting school in Antwerp, where she studied under the exacting eye of a famously unsmiling Russian master.

"Over 200 students audition each year to attend and only 10 are chosen … I enjoyed the fact that near enough is not good enough."

The late nights and weekend practice paid off.

"I completed my course at the top of my class, and even managed to make my teacher smile!"

Timeless by Design

For all the skills she has accumulated, one principle remains constant: "To me, jewellery must be timeless, a piece that can be passed from old to young and still be in style."

That doesn't mean Jodi is immune to what's capturing the imagination of a new generation of wearers. She has a fascination with Earth diamonds - those beautifully imperfect, salt-and-pepper stones that have found such a devoted following among modern brides.

"Each one so unique with different characteristics, some with translucency, others more opaque. Most feature a distinctive salt-and-pepper matrix … reminiscent of staring into a starry night sky."

Twenty Years, One Muse

Two decades on, the Kimberley remains Jodi's greatest muse. Its landscapes, its gemstones, its extraordinary light - all of it finds its way, somehow, into every piece she creates. 

It hasn't always been an easy road - but as Jodi reflects, it was worth "sticking out the hard times" to be able to work so closely with the extraordinary gemstones of the remote, remarkable region she calls home.